Irene and Tony Demas owned a Mediterranean restaurant in Toronto in the 1970s. One of their regular customers was a local artist named John Kinnear, who would come in each day and order a grilled cheese for lunch.
After trying in vain to get him to order something other than the $1.95 grilled cheese sandwich, Demas struck up a deal with the artist.
Irene Demas told the Washington Post,
"My husband made a deal with them to trade food for art," said Demas, adding that Kinnear would often show up for lunch clutching a painting or two under his arm. "We needed art for our walls, and he needed to eat every day."
Kinnear would mostly bring in his own artwork, but occasionally he brought in artwork by an artist from Nova Scotia named Maud Lewis, who after her death in the 1970s became one of Canada's most famous folk artists.
Kinnear allowed the couple to choose the painting they wanted, and Irene Demas, pregnant at the time, chose a painting of a black truck and hung it up in her son's bedroom where it stayed for the next 50 years.
The Demas's recently put the painting up for auction, where it was estimated to sell for around $27,000. But that estimate turned out to be off by a factor of 10, the sale price ringing up at a whopping $272,548.
Ethan Miller, the chief executive for the auction house that sold the painting says he believes the grilled cheese story may have helped sell the painting.
"Just given the heaviness of this era that we've managed to survive, suddenly someone mentions a grilled cheese sandwich and a celebrated artist that has overcome physical adversity," Miller said. "All of those things combined is as irresistible as a grilled cheese sandwich."
No matter the reason, I'm sure the Demas family would say that their trade-up from a $1.95 grilled cheese sandwich to a $272,548 painting was a pretty good deal.
Demas joked about the unexpected income,
It's a nice thought that I'll never have to make another grilled cheese sandwich.
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